sian Empire extended to the
shores of the AEgean, the Empire of Babylon fell before the
conquering armies of Cyrus, the Persian.

The Ionic and AEolic Greeks on the Asiatic coast had been conquered and
made tributary by the Lydian king Croesus: "Down to that time (says
Herodotus) all Greeks had been free." Their conqueror, Croesus, who
ascended the throne in 560 B.C., appeared to be at the summit of human
prosperity and power in his unassailable capital, and with his countless
treasures at Sardis. His dominions comprised nearly the whole of Asia
Minor, as far as the river Halys to the east; on the other side of that
river began the Median monarchy under his brother-in-law Astyages,
extending eastward to some boundary which we cannot define, but
comprising, in a south-eastern direction, Persis proper or Farsistan,
and separated from the Kissians and Assyrians on the east by the line of
Mount Zagros (the present boundary-line between Persia and Turkey).
Babylonia, with its wondrous city, between the Uphrates and the Tigris,
was occupied by the Assyrians or Chaldaeans, under their king Labynetus:
a territory populous and fertile, partly by nature, partly by prodigies
of labor, to a degree which makes us mistrust even an honest eye-witness
who describes it afterward in its decline--but which was then in its
most flourishing condition. The Chaldean dominion under Labynetus
reached to the borders of Egypt, including as dependent territories both
Judaea and Phenicia. In Egypt reigned the native king Amasis, powerful
and affluent, sustained in his throne by a large body of Grecian
mercenaries and himself favorably disposed to Grecian commerce and
settlement. Both with Labynetus and with Amasis, Croesus was on terms of
alliance; and as Astyages was his brother-in-law, the four kings might
well be deemed out of the reach of calamity. Yet within the space of
thirty years, or a little more, the whole of their territories had
become embodied in one vast empire, under the son of an adventurer as
yet not known even by name.

The rise and fall of oriental dynasties have been in all times
distinguished by the same general features. A brave and adventurous
prince, at the head of a population at once poor, warlike, and greedy,
acquires dominion; while his successors, abandoning themselves to
sensuality and sloth, probably also to oppressive and irascible
dispositions, become in process of time victims to those same qualities